37 reasons not to be a military dentist (please feel free to reply to
my post to add more):
I took my military physician post and tweaked it for you dentists. I have a few good friends who are military dentists, and from their input, I am able to share with you some valuable insight.
Virtually nobody is staying in military dentistry. Your pay is not even near to being competitive. The only folks staying in are those who are going on for specialty training.
And to add insult to injury, I hear that your typical 1 yr of dental internship will no longer count as part of your 4 yr payback.
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1-6. when you deploy for 6+ months, you'll enjoy a daily schedule that will look something
like...
1) no sex while your civilian counterparts enjoy a normal sex life. Someday youll look fondly at the days when you or your spouse didnt need Viagra.
2) crappy food while your civilian counterparts enjoy choice restaurants (I heard food in iraq is decent, but I can assure you that food on a ship sucks, and food w/Marines via MREs or trayrats doesnt even deserve the term food.)
3) no broadband internet while your civilian counterparts enjoy itunes and the like.
4) stay in a work environment 24/7 while your civilian counterparts enjoy weekends and holidays off.
5) sleep in a crappy rack/cot (it doesn't deserve the term 'bed')/crap in port-o-pottys while your civilian counterparts enjoy queen/king sized beds and flushing toilets. If youre out in the field, youll enjoy sleeping on the ground.
6) repeat over and over, daily, for approximately 180+ days,
meanwhile, the rest of society is enjoying high def television, plumbing,
broadband internet, the freedom to go out and shop/dine/romantic
evenings/etc, raising a family and spending thousands of more hours with their spouse.
But of course, if you prefer living in a tent, trying to pass time playing cards with your coworkers, then hats off to you !
7. serve your country while the CEOs of defense companies and contractors (Halliburton) are serving themselves richly. okay this
doesn't help, but I like to make fun...
8. YOU LOSE BIG IF YOU TAKE AN HPSP SCHOLARSHIP: you're a sucker to take the HPSP scholarship - I like to call it a "MAFIA loan" (small short term rewards via a little more money during dental school, but ultra heavy payback).
Whats the average dentist earnings? About 225K
What will you earn as a military dentist? About 67K
(base pay as O3 with less than 2 yrs service is 3292 per month, plus average of 1500 for BAH, plus 192 for BAS plus 250 for VSP = 63,000 per year
Then add your generous ASP yearly bonus of $4,0000
And your income is around $67,000 per year.
WHEN YOU'RE MISERABLE CAUSE YOU'RE DEPLOYED, AWAY FROM FAMILY, WILL THIS BE WORTH IT, JUST TO SAVE AN EXTRA $1000 PER MONTH IN STUDENT LOAN PAYMENTS WHEN YOU COULD BE MAKING 200K PER YEAR PRACTICING GENERAL DENTISTRY.
If the price of your freedom is worth less than that $1000 per month student loan payment, then by all means, sign up.
9. GOODBYE AUTONOMY: kiss your right to feeling privileged as a dentist good-bye. you will do what they tell you, go where they tell you, no questions asked (you can ask all you want, but will fall on deaf ears). you might get lucky and get to live in a nice area, but you might also get to live in less cultural/popular areas like 29 Palms CA (middle of desert, east of palm springs), Okinawa, Guam, Norfolk VA, Meridian MS, Ingleside TX, Camp Le Jeune NC, Guantanamo Cuba, among others. Remember you're a dentist - why subjugate yourself to a chain of command? - be all you can be - ie your own boss.
10. TIME IN DENTAL SCHOOL DOES NOT COUNT: the military doesn't respect the time you spent during dental school if you want to make the military a career. For instance, an officer who did not go to dental school can retire at 42 (start at 22, do 20 yrs). but minimum for dentists is 46. Then to insult you even more, your time in dental school does not count in the pay chart. This matters because a LT (O-3) with less than 2 yrs in service makes roughly $3200 per month in base pay, whereas if you had over 4 yrs, you would make $4000 per month in base pay despite being in the same rank - that's a difference of $800 per month.
IT'S A SHAME THAT TIME DURING DENTAL SCHOOL DOES NOT COUNT TOWARDS ACTIVE DUTY TIME. MSCs (medical planners) CAN GET THEIR MASTERS DEGREE IN HEALTH ADMIN AS A CIVILIAN, GET PAID AS AN E4 AS WELL AS TUITION, AND THAT TIME COUNTS TOWARDS RETIREMENT. THEY EVEN ACCRUE LEAVE. SO MEDICAL PLANNERS CAN RETIRE AT 42, BUT YOU WITH A DENTAL DEGREE CAN RETIRE AT 46.
11. ADMINISTRATIVE JOBS: makes me laugh how one of the advertisements in military is "don't have to worry about setting up your practice". well they more than make up for it by giving you plenty of administrative duties on top of seeing patients - lol.
12. NO CHOICE IN YOUR EQUIPMENT: you can't change things like you can with your own practice. you get to enjoy folks working under you who rotate as often as you do (and therefore need constant training). don't like the old computer you're working on? well in your own practice, you can change that. in the military, you won't, unless you have that admin job.
13. YOUR EVALUATIONS: fitness reports - this is the most humorsome part the military that takes away any feeling of autonomy and privilege. to make a higher rank after you've been in for awhile, your fitness reports need to be filled with bullets (stuff you've done in addition to seeing patients) - so have fun racking up the admin duties to show how good of a manager you are. failure to do so will result in you being very frustrated at not making captain/colonel (O-6). oh and lots of ***** kissing can often beef up fitness reports to make you more competitive than your colleagues. do yourself a favor - don't enter an arena you don't need to be in, and remember that NOT joining the military means you don't have to deal with the bs associated with fitness reports.
14. FIGHT FOR FREEDOM, BUT DON'T EXPECT ANY FOR YOURSELF: in the military, you're under the Uniform Code of Justice. odds are, this won't affect you. but lord help you if you've put in 10+ yrs, trying to make it a career, then you get pulled over for DUI. in the civilian world, nobody will penalize your career as easily as the military. interestingly, it's still illegal to have sex in an adulterous affair, it is illegal to have a homosexual relationship, it is illegal to have anal sex (heterosexual too), and it is illegal to have sex with a prostitute (even if it's legal for civilians). you will even be told which areas are off-limits because of previous crimes - not a big deal unless something happens to you in that area. basically my point is you give up a ton of freedoms (because when you work in the military, you subject your life to conditions similar to communism/dictatorship). these freedoms don't become apparent until you find yourself stuck in a situation. just ask LT Kelly Flinn (previous AF pilot convicted for adultery).
15. TRAINING: Training, training, training. First you get a taste of it at OIS - several wks of boot camp style living (early to bed, early to rise). You get to learn things that will be vital to your future success as a dentist - the first thing that comes to mind is marching in formation. Your civilian friends in the meantime can stay home, enjoy their time, but suffer the consequences of not knowing how to march in formation. To get a taste of your valuable training at OIS, go to their website, look at their FAQ at
https://otcn.netc.navy.mil/ois/index...issn/index.cfm
My favorite is "Are OIS students allowed personal phone calls?...prohibited during the first 2 weeks of training".
oh you'll love C4 training too - that's 10 days or so of living spartan, showering in communal showers (when you're not camping), completing your bowel movements in port-o-pottys, crappy food, the usual - kind of like conditions in a deployment.
16. REQUIRED COMPUTER TRAINING: navy knowledge online (and similar other training) - every so often, you'll get to update your computer training as you sit in front of a screen for many hrs, clicking thru outrageously slow 'learning modules'.
17. NOT ALWAYS 30 DAYS VACATION: they say you get 30 days of paid vacation per year. this isn't always the case. also remember that leave days count even if it's the weekend. once you report to a command, you will often have difficulty taking all 30 days of leave per year. over time this will build up, and if you carry more than 60 days of leave on the books, you can end up losing it. leave is money...
18. LOST SPOUSE INCOME: those with spouses who want careers too:
The military is the absolute worst place to be, given that you have no idea where you will be in 2 yrs and the frequent moving. so if you join the military, if your spouse loses out on a good job making good $$$/pension benefits, then you just unintentionally killed thousands of $$$ of potential earnings. if your spouse does not work or works for very little, then the military won't hurt. but if your spouse is a school teacher who would make a nice pension in retirement, your spouse will never see those benefits moving from school district to school district.
19. YOUR CONTRACT: guess why they have 3-4 yr contracts/scholarships? cause when people find that they've been duped, the contract keeps them roped in. Yes you can quit and go AWOL, but then you'd be breaking the law, and that's not very convenient. if this were truly a great job, do you really think they would have contracts greater than 1 yr?
20. HIGH TURNOVER: the military finds that it is cheaper to have high turnover (don't give many incentives to keep people in, but make up for it in recruiting those who are open-minded to being duped). Nobody is staying in military dentistry, except the few who decide to do specialty training.
21. NOT SO GREAT RETIREMENT: your retirement pay is the same as any officer who didn't go to dental school (less if you count the fact that officers entering the service straight out of undergrad will end up retiring 4 yrs sooner than you). I haven't figured out the VA retirement system - perhaps one's retirement there is proportional to one's job (and therefore better). And how good is retirement pay? well after 20 yrs it's 50% of your base pay (ie same for everyone in that rank, regardless of what job or degrees you have). The 2005 base pay for 0-5 (typical rank for those retiring at 20 yrs) is $6793. Your retirement pay is the average base pay for your previous 3 yrs, so it's a little less than 50% of $6793 in today's dollars. But for sake of simplicity in calculating, 50% is $3396 monthly, ie $40758 annually. Not a bad pension if you didn't go to dental school.
YOU GET TO WORK FOR THE ONLY EMPLOYER IN THE COUNTRY THAT COMPENSATES DENTAL RETIREMENT AT THE SAME LEVEL AS NURSE RETIREMENT.
22. SKETCHY EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN. if you're stationed overseas with children, hope your children enjoy being taught by teachers contracted abroad (and no, these teachers are not typically Philips Exeter material). I have heard good things about overseas schools however. But if for some reason you don't like the school system in Guam or wherever, what private school choice do you have? - nothing.
23. FINANCIAL LOSS WHEN MOVING: DLA (dislocation allowance) - approx $2K for officers to help off-set the cost of your move every 2-3 yrs. however keep in mind the closing costs if you sell your home - at least 15K for a cheap home (130K). Obviously the realtor's fee is much higher the more expensive your home is. the closing costs for a home in San Diego or Washington DC - lol - absolutely hilarious compared with the compensation of DLA. In the business world, an upper lvl manager will be paid many thousands more for having to move (30K-70K).
24. LOST HOME INVESTMENT. the #1 investment is one's home in america. However with moving every few years, don't expect your home to be your investment. most people in the military rent, very few go thru the trouble of keeping their home long-term.
25. SLAVE LABOR. remember that when you sign a contract, there is no limit to the hours you can work. Not always abused to the extreme, or else everyone would leave. However it is abused from time to time, like when you deploy. Imagine what the military would have to pay a dentist to go 6 months in a war zone, in a wonderful place like Iraq - upwards of 500K i'm guessing? the Pentagon gets one hell of a deal if you sign up
26. GREAT FOR PRIVATE PRACTICE. for every year spent in the military, that is a year lost in building up your practice.
27. MOVING (an experience you'll learn to love). the moving company will document every scratch and nick on your furniture, but when it's delivered with more nicks and scratches, you won't get compensated unless it's broken. And even if you could get compensated, odds are you won't bother yourself with filing a claim since you won't want to waste your time to file the claim in person (they purposefully make you file it in person, cause if you could file it by mail, that would generate more claims). So over the years, your furniture will get dinged and damaged, all at your own expense. Typical sequence goes like this: you buy new furniture, then you move, then you notice there are scratches but not enough to make yourself file a claim, then you move again
(typically every 2-3 yrs) at which point the previous move's scratches are recorded as unclaimable for the current move, then you notice more scratches after move #2, but since those new scratches aren't enough for a claim you don't bother (and move #1 scratches which were recorded as having already existed can't be claimed at this point), then the cycle continues every time you move, to where finally you have furniture completely dinged/scratched that can't be compensated. i apologize for the run-on sentences - heh.
28-30: PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT: personal reasons to join the military as a dentist (in addition to what the recruiter tells you):
a) you hate your family (i'm not saying that military dentists hate their family, i'm simply saying that if you're the rare person who does hate their family, you'll love the military given all the time you'll be away from them).
b) the thought of being away while your child is born is appealing (for males) - this happens often, given deployment schedules.
c) if you're single, you like to stay single (kind of hard to develop a relationship if you're in middle of nowhere or on deployment or stationed in Okinawa, Diego Garcia, or Guam).
31. Sometimes you have the opportunity to be a guinea pig. Just ask the folks who previously tried refusing the anthrax vaccine. In all likelihood youll enjoy receiving smallpox and anthrax vaccines. My personal favorite is the anthrax vaccine. Its got one hell of an after-kick. Smallpox is pretty cool to observe when someone has a bad reaction too.
32. I think one of the biggest reasons why people don't stay beyond their commitment is the fact that they don't factor in the stress on their family with regards to deploying or moving. They think, "i can handle a deployment to iraq, a ship, afghanistan, move overseas, etc". But when they complete all of these events, they find that things take a greater toll than they had expected with regards to their family. Thoughts include, "hmmm...my son or daughter missed a lot of time with me...don't need to do that to them again". Then voila, off to civvy world they go
33. If you're a pet lover, you'll want to keep your pets down to 2 cats or dogs (or 1 of each). If you go overseas, you will have restrictions. Go to Japan, and enjoy following a whole list of stuff to bring them over (you may have to keep them quarantined for 6 months). All in all, a big headache.
34. I almost forgot to mention. When you deploy, you don't get weekends off. So imagine you were deployed to Iraq for 6 months...that's a lot of weekends to miss out on. The only time you would get off, in that situation, is leave time of 30 days per year (and yes, weekends do count during leave !!!).
35. If you're single, you're going to have a very rough time trying to fix your love life with the click of a mouse button. Your match.com pursuits will be very challenging when you write back saying you can't go on a date for the duration of your deployment
36. You think you can enjoy seeing the world in the military? Most married people, when traveling abroad, don't seem to enjoy their travels when they're spouse isn't around. To further complicate things, you will enjoy all sorts of restrictions when you're out on 'liberty'. These include having a 'liberty buddy' (they don't want you exploring by yourself) as well as Cinderella curfews. If you stay overnight in a hotel (at your own expense), you'll enjoy calling at 6am to 'check in'.
37. Dentists are deployed to war zones. Pity the person who receives a disabling injury, for I hear it's tough to perform procedures if you've lost a limb.
But of course, the best reasons to work in the military are that you're not self-serving, you don't mind working a lot more (lose countless weekends during deployments) for a fraction of civilian pay, you don't mind risking your life or limb, and you love the idea of working in the military. Most people are great to work with, and that's the best quality i can think of (but people are great to work with in civilian world too).
CONCLUSION: suck it up and borrow the money (you'll have much more "sucking it up" down the road if you take an HPSP scholarship).
But if you're the OCPD type (obsessive compulsive personality disorder) and you hate the idea of borrowing money (even though a few years down the road you can make 225K per year), then please sign up !!!
Don't let the military fool you with 20K here and there. They know you're broke, so those small figures seem large. If you simply look ahead just a bit, you'll see that your professional riches will be many times greater as a civilian.
